Mobile police Officer Mike Bailey, who responded to a 911 call from the victim’s daughter in June 2010, testified about finding White the kitchen of her Spring Hill Avenue home. He said the 69-year-old woman, a Realtor and mortgage broker who had moved back to Mobile after serving in the administration of then-Gov. Bob Riley, was on her back and blood was on her face.

Bailey testified that White’s nightgown was pulled over her breasts, and her bottom had been removed.

“There was blood everywhere,” Mobile County Assistant District Attorney JoBeth Murphree told the jury during her opening statement. “Her head was basically beaten to a pulp.”

The trial resumes Tuesday at 9:15 a.m. If convicted, Kennedy faces the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

DNA evidence detailed

Murphree told jurors that police had no suspects for about two months until investigators on Aug. 31 of that year matched blood at the house to Kennedy’s DNA. She said authorities will testify that they found the defendant’s DNA on White’s steps, a piece of glass from a broken window on the porch, a paper towel in the kitchen and a candle holder in the dining room.

What’s more, Murphree said, investigators matched Kennedy to a fingerprint in an upstairs bedroom and a palm print on the door in the dining room.

Defense attorney Jason Darley said in his opening statement that police did not find his client’s DNA on or in the victim. “You’ll see there is nothing of a sexual nature tying Mr. Kennedy to this case,” he said.

Darley urged jurors to be mindful of holes in the prosecution's case.

“Not everything adds up here,” he said. “There’s going to be doubt.”

But Murphree told jurors they will hear that Kennedy changed his story several times under questioning from police. At first, she said, he denied ever going inside White’s house or knowing her. Told police had found his fingerprints inside the house, he then said that White had flagged him down and asked for help moving lamps, Murphree said.

The prosecutor said Kennedy continued to insist his blood could not have been found in the house.

“Well, it was,” she said. “And it was all over those items I described.”

Murphree said that Kennedy changed his story once again after the detective told him police had found his fingerprint on White’s thigh. In fact, she acknowledged, police were not able to lift an identifiable print from the victim. But she said he told investigators that he and White had had sex.

The defendant’s statement to police was the subject of a hearing before Circuit Judge Joseph “Rusty” Johnston after the jury had been selected but before the trial began. Kennedy’s lawyers sought to have the detective’s questions about the fingerprint edited out of the defendant’s statement on grounds that it would mislead jurors into thinking investigators actually had found the defendant’s fingerprint on the victim’s body.

Johnston agreed to remove some of the detective’s questions but left the statement largely intact. Murphree argued that the detective’s question was a common police tactic of making the suspect believe the evidence was stronger than it was in an attempt to trigger a confession.

“Yeah, it’s trying to trick him,” she told the judge. “And the courts have said that’s fine.”

Grandson testifies

The victim’s grandson, Landon Miller, testified that White was supposed to pick him up on the morning of June 28, 2010. When she failed to arrive, he said, his mother sent him on his bicycle to White’s house.

Miller, who was 13 at the time, testified that he saw the window above his grandmother’s sink was broken. He said he looked inside the house and called his mother when he did not see White.

The mother, Laurie Miller, testified that she called 911 and then headed over to her mother’s house. She said her mother had been back in Mobile for about eight months at that point after serving in the Alabama Department of Economic Development and Community Affairs. She previously had worked on Riley’s campaign.

During his cross-examination of White’s daughter, Darley asked about her telling police that her mother’s relationships with men ended badly and that she had mentioned an older man in Montgomery. Miller testified that she did not believe her mother was seeing the man romantically.

The jury of seven men and eight women includes three alternates. A fourth alternate had been selected, but that woman failed to show up for the trial today, so the judge decided to press on with three.